Disclaimer: see prologue.
Chapter Seven: "When Knowledge Defeats Him"
September 26, 1996-
Ron took a deep breath. He glanced nervously over to the Hufflepuff table. This was ridiculous. He didn't like this Raleigh girl! How could he! He'd only met her once. But, then again, she had been really nice… and pretty… and she had seemed to like him…
But he fancied Hermione, right? But Hermione was a lost cause. He sighed to himself. Now here was a dilemma he had never before faced, and he had faced a lot of them. But he was making more of this than it was. It was just one silly date! He had to go over there sometime and tell her that he agreed to go. All right, he was stalling. What should he say to her? What should he do? But judging by the conversation they had already had the previous day, Raleigh seemed to be an expert at talking.
He looked across the table from himself, to Hermione. She was now deeply immersed in conversation with Harry, who was seated next to her. Ron couldn't help to notice that they were both staring a little too deeply into one another's eyes. For nothing more than a split second, something that felt remarkably like jealousy surged angrily through Ron. But then it was gone, replaced with a feeling of hollowness. He stood up from his seat at the table and made his way towards the Hufflepuffs, wondering if his friends would even notice his absence, and knowing the answer.
She was prettier than he remembered. Raleigh had shoulder-length blonde hair and large, eerie, gray eyes. She had a nice smile too, he noticed, as she chatted happily with one of her friends. He shook his head slightly and smiled in spite of himself. He could tell this girl was going to grow on him.
Harry and Hermione were alone in the common room that night. They weren't quite sure where Ron currently was and, although Harry wouldn't admit it, it wasn't his biggest concern at the moment. He was, after all, alone in the common room with Hermione. He honestly couldn't recall a time when he had really been alone with her for a chance to just… talk. Well, besides that time in fourth year when he and Ron had been fighting, but that didn't count. He had been too stupid to notice the great girl right in front of his eyes back then.
But now he noticed. And now he felt oddly… nervous. This was his best friend for God's sake! He shouldn't be nervous with her… right? No, of course not, it was ridiculous.
She sat in the crimson armchair beside his facing the hot fire. An incredibly hot fire, Harry noted. He loosened the tie underneath his robes and slumped back against his chair.
Then it occurred to him how close she was. The chairs they were sitting in were right next to each other. Resting peacefully on its armrest, her hand was only inches from his own. He could see, hear, feel her inhaling and exhaling breath. He tried to synchronize his breathing movements with her own.
He watched wordlessly as her deep, beautiful, chocolaty brown eyes rolled across the pages in front of her face. She held the book up with her right hand, and Harry noticed once again how close the left one was to his own. He was supposed to be doing a Potions essay at the moment, but no, Hermione Granger was much more interesting.
Her hand looked so smooth, so silky, it couldn't possibly be real. He felt that if he touched it, it would pass right through him. He came remarkably close to taking that hand in his own, to see if it was actually corporeal, but he didn't.
This wasn't working. Harry brought his quill to his mouth and began to chew thoughtfully. Were there newt or salamander eyes in Growth Potion? Or both?
His thoughts were interrupted once again by the girl seated next to him, deeply immersed in her book, and deeply oblivious to the fact that he was marveling at how beautiful she was. The skin on her face appeared to be just as soft as the skin on her hand, which was still lying dangerously close to Harry's own. Harry winced inwardly as he pictured the inevitable horrified reaction he would receive if he grabbed her hand, or stroked her cheek, or brushed her brown curls, which smelled of strawberry, out of her face… or if he kissed her, what would her reaction be to that?
"You like Quidditch?"
Raleigh looked at Ron, as if he had just asked her if the sky was blue. "Do I like Quidditch? Is it possible to live in the Wizarding World and not like Quidditch?"
Ron chuckled. "I guess I'll take that as a yes."
Raleigh sighed sadly, "I'd try out for my House team if I wasn't so ruddy awful."
Ron laughed out loud, "Hey, that's not stopping me!"
"You're not awful!" she protested with an enthusiasm that surprised Ron. "You've got a lot of talent!"
Ron scoffed. "Raleigh, have you ever seen me play?"
Raleigh shifted uncomfortably. "Well, Gryffindor won the cup last year," she offered feebly.
Ron scoffed again. "It was just a bloody fluke. I'm awful, truly, I am. The only reason I'm on the team is because there's no one else. Oliver Wood would slaughter us all if he could see what's become of his sacred position."
"No, Ron," Raleigh argued softly. "You've got talent. A lot of talent. And determination. I see it in your eyes when you play. And for a moment, it's just you and the Quaffle. But then, it's like all of a sudden you're snapped back into reality, and you remember the hundreds of people watching you and you lose your nerve. You can do it though, Ron! You've got it in you! I've seen it!"
Ron felt his ears turn deep crimson. He was surprised at how happy Raleigh's words made him.
Harry repositioned himself uncomfortably in the common room chair in which he was seated. Hermione had long since gone to bed, but he seemed to be suffering from an acute case of insomnia.
He was finding it harder and harder to focus on school. He was finding it harder and harder to distract his feelings. He thought it would work… at first. There was so much else to concentrate on here. His friends, his school work, the Order, Kali and Elita, Voldermort's rising… Hermione.
But now, more than ever, he found his thoughts drifting back to Sirius. He thought he should be sad. But he wasn't. He was just angry. It was a horrible, bitter anger that he had never felt before Sirius had fallen behind the veil.
He was angry with several people. He was beyond angry with Voldemort for planting the images of Sirius suffering in the Department of Mysteries in his head in the first place. He was angry with Mr. Weasley, if he hadn't been attacked by the snake, maybe Harry wouldn't have been so insistent on going to the Department of Mysteries to save Sirius. He was angry with Dumbledore for not letting him know about his connection with Voldemort sooner, and not telling him the purpose of Occlumeny or what Voldemort could do with a connection with Harry at his disposal. He was angry with the Order for showing up in the Department of Mysteries; it had been his fight, not theirs. He was angry with Lupin for holding him back when there was a tiny glimmer of hope in his mind that Sirius might still be alive. He was angry with the fates or the gods or whatever was up there looking down on him, because they obviously loved nothing more than to see him suffer on a daily basis.
But above all he was angry with himself. If anyone, he should've known that the visions of Sirius had been a lie. He should've known, above all else, that what you see is never what you get. He should've known… but he hadn't known. And that's why he was so angry.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair once again. It had seemed rather bulky that entire night, but he hadn't dared to move on account of Hermione being so close to him before. But now he just didn't want to move, he was simply too weary. He then realized there was something under the cushion in his chair that was causing him to feel so uncomfortable. He reached under it and pulled out, of all things, a Muggle notebook. A Muggle notebook? It must belong to one of the Muggle-borns, Harry rationalized. Curiosity got the better of him, and he opened it up to the first page. But "If you're reading this, you must be—" was as far as he got, for at that very moment a blood-curdling screech issued from the girl's dormitories. In haste, Harry shoved the notebook under the seat cushion, once again leaving it forgotten.
